


Lilac

by petersnotkingyet



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Background Eric "Bitty" Bittle/Jack Zimmermann - Freeform, Chronic Illness, Hanahaki Disease, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Future Kent "Parse" Parson/Jeff "Swoops" Troy, M/M, Surgey, Unrequited Love, blood cw, death mention, past Kent "Parse" Parson/Jack Zimmermann
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-31
Updated: 2018-03-31
Packaged: 2019-04-16 09:38:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14161980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petersnotkingyet/pseuds/petersnotkingyet
Summary: “Kent,” Jeff said.  It was like someone had unmuted a TV, and Kent’s knees gave as the noise of the crowd hit him all at once.  Swoops had ahold of him too well for him to fall, and more of their teammates were crowding around.  Kent looked down at the ice, and there, among the bloody purple petals, was a single whole flower.





	Lilac

            In his late teens, Kent had developed a lingering cough that was put down to a reappearance of childhood asthma.  It got worse after Jack’s overdose, and Kent coughed up petals for the first time shortly after he arrived in Las Vegas.  He knew what it meant, but he didn’t tell his coaches or the team doctor or anyone associated with the Aces.  It took him months to tell his own mother.  Every three months, he drove himself to a clinic two hours out of town.  The drugs he was prescribed couldn’t stop the disease, but they could slow its progress and ease the symptoms enough for Kent to function.

For a while at least.

It came out in an away game against the Falconers.  He’d already been coughing enough that Swoops had asked if he’d remembered to take his medicine—which the team thought was for asthma—but Kent could still play, so he let it go.  Kent kept having to swallow the petals though, and his mouth tasted like blood.  By the third period, his vision was blurring, but Kent couldn’t stop pushing himself.

With seconds left in the game, Kent scored and what felt like the entire Falconers team landed on top of him.  For a moment, he didn’t even have enough air to cough.  After several long seconds, Alexei Mashkov pulled him loose from the pile with a shake that jarred his seizing airways open.  Kent shook with the effort not to cough, knowing he wouldn’t be able to stop once he started.  Mashkov was speaking, yelling actually, but the words swam around Kent incomprehensibly.

Mashkov dumped him on his own feet, and that was it.  Kent braced his hands against his thighs and coughed so hard it felt like his ribs might snap.  It was too painful for him to worry about being discrete.  Purple petals, dotted with blood, fell to the ice.  He glanced up the ice and saw Jeff skating towards him, eyes wide and face slack with fear.  Something was still stuck in his throat though, and Kent’s body forced him to cough harder.

Finally, Kent got air in.  The oxygen made him dizzy and cleared his vision just as Jeff reached him.  Swoops wrapped one arm around Kent and grabbed his bicep with the other, like he was about to haul him off the ice.  Kent tried to say he was okay, but his body was clinging to the air too desperately for him to do more than mouth the words.

“Kent,” Jeff said.  It was like someone had unmuted a TV, and Kent’s knees gave as the noise of the crowd hit him all at once.  Swoops had ahold of him too well for him to fall, and more of their teammates were crowding around.  Kent looked down at the ice, and there, among the bloody purple petals, was a single whole flower.

Everyone knew whole flowers were the final stage of the disease.  Without surgery or a change in Jack’s feelings, Kent would be dead in a matter of months.  The Aces were in shock.  The staff was furious.  Everyone was confused as to how he’d managed to keep playing so long without anyone knowing.

Jack called the next morning.  He paused too long after introducing himself, and Kent stared at his empty hospital room while he waited for the other man to speak.  Jeff was staying with him while Coach West went back to the hotel for a change of clothes, but he’d gone downstairs to get coffee.  Kent’s mother was trying to catch a flight to Providence.

“Is it…” Jack finally said.  “Is it me?”

“Yeah,” Kent said.  They both paused again.  “They’re purple lilacs.  First love.”

“There’s no one-”

“There’s no one else,” Kent said.  “Just you.”

“Kent….” Jack said.  “I didn’t…. We….”

“I know you never loved me,” Kent said.  “It started before you left.  I didn’t get diagnosed until later, but it started when I was a teenager.”

“The coughing,” Jack mumbled.  “Kent, I’m so sorry.”

“You’ve been gone for years,” Kent said, “and you still might kill me.”

“I’m sorry,” Jack said.  “Jesus, Kent, you scared the shit out of everyone last night.  Your team was hysterical.  Tater cried.  People love you, Kent, it’s just-”

“Just not you,” Kent said.  “It’s that little blond kid from your college team, isn’t it?”

Jack didn’t answer, but his silence was clear enough.  Kent closed his eyes and drew in a shaky, painful breath.  He could feel his airways crackle beneath his skin.

“I won’t tell,” Kent said.  “I don’t hate you, Jack.”

“I’m sorry,” Jack said.  “You should have the surgery.”

“Yeah,” Kent said.  “I should have had it a long time ago.  I never should have let it get this bad.”

“You could have died,” Jack said.

“Yeah,” Kent said.  He wanted to say more.  He wanted to tell Jack that he’d been in love with him since he was a teenager and he didn’t know who he would be when he wasn’t anymore.  Instead, he said, “Is this going to out you?”

“Maybe,” Jack said.  “It’ll be okay, Kenny.  Eric and I were planning on coming out soon anyway.”

That made it hurt more somehow.  Kent pinched the bridge of his nose and wished he hadn’t answered the phone.  He wished he hadn’t tried to play through the pain just because it was the Falconers.  He wished he’d never put on hockey skates in the first place.

“Bye, Jack,” Kent said.

“Take care,” Jack said.  He paused, like he wanted to say something else, and then he hung up.  The phone hummed in Kent’s ear.

When Kent looked up, Swoops was standing in the doorway.  He had coffee in one hand and cake pops.  His expression was apologetic.

“Sorry it took so long,” Jeff finally said.  “I thought you’d like these, so I went to the Starbucks across the street.”

“Thanks,” Kent said, and Swoops handed the cake pops over.  “How long were you standing there?”

“Not the whole time,” Swoops said.  “But I…. I kind of already figured it was Jack.”

“Yeah, I guess almost dying the first time I played him again wasn’t exactly subtle,” Kent said, forcing himself to crack a grin.  Jeff grimaced.

“Kent…” he said.  “I just—Why didn’t you tell us?  Even if you still didn’t get the surgery, we could have at least been there for you.  I don’t understand how you managed to hide it this long.”

“I don’t know,” Kent said.  “It’s complicated.”

“Haven’t you been in pain?” Swoops said.  “My cousin was miserable before he got his flowers out.”

“It does hurt, but the medicine I’m on helps,” Kent said.  “And Hanahaki’s is gradual, so it doesn’t hit you all at once.”

Jeff sat down in the chair next to the bed and was quiet for a moment.  After a pause, he said, “Were you scared that you were going to be one of the ones who can’t love again after the surgery?”

“Yeah,” Kent said, trying not to flinch.  “I know it’s only a small percent… but it’s scary.  And I wouldn’t be able to play while I was recovering either.”

“You can’t play like this either,” Jeff pointed out.  Kent nodded.

“I think…” he said.  “I think beneath it all, I was always kind of hoping he was going to love me.”

“If he loved you, the flowers would go away,” Swoops said, nodding understandingly.  “And if you get them out, you’d never be able to love him again.”

“Yeah,” Kent said.  “Stupid, right?”

“No,” Jeff said.  “Love’s never stupid.”

Kent’s mom arrived that afternoon, and Kent had surgery two days later.  Even with the swelling and the pain, he could feel the difference in his breathing within the first day.  It was more than that though; he felt lighter.  After a week, he was well enough to fly home.  His mom spent a week in Vegas with him, and then Swoops stayed with him for nearly a month after that.

Kent was out for the rest of the season.  Without their captain and lead scorer, the Aces didn’t make it far in the postseason.  The Falconers won the Cup—because that was just how Kent’s life worked—and Jack kissed the blond kid from Samwell at center ice—because that was just how Kent’s life worked. 

The Aces didn’t watch the final game of the Stanley Cup.  The next day, they’d release a statement supporting Jack and Eric, but they had dinner together and checked the score occasionally the night of the game.  The guys without wives got drunk and slept sprawled across Vicks’s furniture, and Kent’s ‘recovering from major surgey’ earned him half a bed.  Jeff called dibs on the other half.

“’m glad you’re better,” Swoops said drunkenly as he and Kent flopped onto their own sides of the bed.

“Thanks,” Kent said.

“Because… Because you’re way better than the Cup,” Jeff said, “and someday you’re gonna love the fuck out of somebody.”

Kent laughed and said, “If you say so.”  He’d had much less to drink than Swoops.

“Just give it a while, alright?”

“Alright,” Kent said.  Jeff smiled and closed his eyes, and Kent felt a small, startling flutter of fondness low in his stomach.

“Goodnight, Cap,” Swoops said.

“Goodnight.” 


End file.
